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Monday, February 29, 2016

Letter to Jonathan Haidt in his TED presentation of liberals and conservatives.

Thought you might
appreciate a non-academic view of your presentation on TED. Many
years ago I wrote a thesis based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I
found his ideas very useful in understanding the differences between
conventional and post-conventional thinkers which equate to liberal
and conservative according to Charles Hampden-Turner.

Thought your TED
presentation was a big improvements of your earlier work which tired
to explain liberalism and conservatism in terms of a long list of
attributes.. You now relate the differences between liberal and
conservatives in in terms of harm, fairness, ingroup, authority and
purity.

Was happy to see
someone after Lawrence Kohlberg working on the issues of morlaity
and ethics. Kohlberg's work was built upon the foundations of Piaget
and Erik Erikson. Not clear what the intellectual basis your ideas on
liberal and conservative is. The terms 'liberal and “conservative”
are more often used in political science rather than social science
or psychology.

Found Kohlberg's
work to be valuable because it was based on developmental psychology
and each his stages of moral development. Kohlberg's would probably
see lower Tea Party and citizen militia members as lower small group
(stage 3) conservatives. Would guess that libertarianism would fit
better into a pre-conventional stage where there is an emphasis on
individualism rather than cooperation within a group.

It is possible thee
is some genetic components of liberalism. About 20% of humans possess
the Explorer
Gene. Those with it are more curious, restless, and take more
risks. In addition , a study of the UK show people on the extreme
right who have larger amygdalas than liberals. Democrats show
greater activity in their left insula, an area associated with self
and social awareness. People who identified themselves as liberals
generally had a larger anterior cingulate cortex.

Kohlberg made some
profound observation about stage 5 post-conventional thought. First
few people who did not get a college education develop stage 5
thinking. College students are exposed to post-conventional
thinking in college, but most of the graduates do not develop the
post-conventional thought process until they are in their
mid-thirties.

More important,
Kohlberg noticed that post-conventional thinkers understand
conventional thought, but the reverse is not true. Conservatives
have a difficult and few grasp post-conventional ideas. This may be
why our political process in this nation is in disarray.

In my view the big
difference between liberals (post-conventionals) and conservatives
(conventionals) is their view of the law. Conservatives want a static
unchanging world with religion and law in concrete. Conservatives are
the defenders of the status quo. Post-conventionals see the law as a
social contract that is negotiated and frequently changed.

My own view is that
liberals have a more pragmatic outlook while conservatives are far
more ideological, a term you refer to as purity. Purity can be a
dangerous in politics and religion. We can look back to the fascist
movements in Italy and Germany prior to WW2 to see where purity can
take you.

Glad to see a
psychologist working on the important issues of ethics an morality In
my view liberalism and conservatism are not opposite sides on different sides the
same coin. Don't think that a dialectal conversation between liberals
and conservatives will produce much positive outcome because as
Kohlberg observed, few conservatives can grasp post-conventional
thinking.